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Putting patients first: Nurses offer resources to enhance care

TORONTO, April 12, 2006 – As we mark National Cancer
Month, Ontario nurses have released two resources to help health-care
providers enhance patient care. The Nursing Best Practice Guidelines
(BPGs), released by the Registered Nurses’ Association of
Ontario (RNAO), are aimed at helping patients achieve better pain
control associated with diseases like cancer and to encourage greater
participation in their own health-care.

“Relieving pain and getting patients involved in decisions
affecting their health-care is part of the ongoing professional
practice of nurses,” says Tazim Virani, director of RNAO’s
Nursing Best Practice Guidelines Program. “These guidelines
give nurses and other health-care providers the latest evidence-based
strategies to become even more aware and responsive to individual
patient needs and are especially useful in today’s stretched
and busy health-care climate.”

RNAO’s Assessment and Management of Pain guideline (November 2002) is based on
the principle that pain is unique and different for each individual.
RNAO developed the guideline because acute or chronic pain has profound
physiological and psychological effects on patients, affecting their
recovery from illness, altering their physical and emotional functioning,
reducing quality of life and ability to work.

The resource emphasizes that patients and their families should
be involved in making pain management decisions. This tool provides
nurses with both the knowledge and the skills to assess and help
manage pain due to surgery, illness or injury. The guideline advises
that there are different ways to deal with different kinds of pain
and each individual needs a unique pain management plan. The resource
also recommends that nurses employ a useful zero-to-ten scale, when
asking patients to rate their pain. The guideline recommends both
pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods of treatment.

“Cancer, like many serious illnesses, can cause patients
to experience pain that can undermine all aspects of life. Pain
can be managed if clinicians use the right tools to ensure the best
relief possible, enabling patients to live as fully as possible.
Patients with cancer or other kinds of pain need to be partners
with the health-care team to assess and find solutions to their
discomfort,” says RN Doris Howell, a cancer researcher at
the University Health Network and the lead in developing the guideline.

RNAO’s Client Centred CareBPG (July 2002 and updated 2006) clarifies the
guiding principles and values that nurses use to build positive
relationships with patients in their daily practice. It advocates
a caring and sensitive approach in which patients are viewed as
individuals with changing needs.

“RNAO’s guideline is based on the assumption that
you know yourself the best and have the right to play an active
role in working with a health-care team to define your goals and
how to achieve them,” says RN Penny Nelligan, director of
the Huron County Health Unit and the lead in developing the guideline.
“At a practical level, client centred care means nurses listening
to the needs of patients and respecting their autonomy. This kind
of human interaction can make the difference between a good or bad
experience for a patient in our health-care system. ”

RNAO’s ambitious Best Practice Guidelines Program, funded
by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, was launched in 1999
to provide the best available evidence for patient care across a
wide spectrum of health-care areas. The 29 guidelines developed
to date are a substantive contribution towards building excellence
in Ontario’s health-care system. They are available to nurses
across Canada and abroad.

The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario is the professional
association representing registered nurses in Ontario. Since 1925,
RNAO has lobbied for healthy public policy, promoted excellence
in nursing practice, increased nurses’ contribution to shaping
the health-care system, and influenced decisions that affect nurses
and the public they serve.

To learn more about RNAO’s Nursing Best Guidelines Program
or to view this resource, please visit: http://rnao.ca/bpg.